Del.icio.us links for July 27th through August 3rd:
- Do Manga Characters Look “White”? – I have given presentations on manga to Western audiences many times, but regardless of the particular themes of my talks, when the floor is opened up for discussion I am invariably asked the same question: “Why do all the characters look Caucasian?” You may have asked yourself the same question. [...] Considering the wide range of variation in the features of persons of both European and East Asian descent, and the fact that these line drawings fall nowhere remotely within that range, it seems odd to claim that such cartoons look “more like” one people than another, but I hope you will see by now that what is being discussed has nothing to do with objective anatomical reality, but is rather about signification.
Tags: art comics Japan manga anime race culture - Jello Biafra and on MySpace Music – Two songs from Jello’s new project – Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine.
Tags: band music hotdamn! - Dirty Projectors & The Curse Of Brooklyn’s Hipster Ephemera – “They’re this summer’s most talked about group in certain post and zip codes, but the Dirty Projectors stand for everything that’s wrong with the hipster mentality.” Good counter in comments, too.
Tags: band music hipsters article - Interview with Benny Horowitz (Gaslight Anthem) – Q: So it is hard to sometimes connect with the audience – when you have that separation?
A: It definitely is. But honestly it shouldn’t matter. If there are six kids watching you and their eyes are on you and they’re there to see you – those six kids should get the same shit that a thousand kids should get. That’s like – one of my mantras for playing and touring is something I read in Rollin’s Get in the Van. There was one show in particular – there were two or three kids in the audience and Rollins was fucking around with the show and he didn’t really take it seriously. I’m not sure who in the band, but somebody straight up threw him into the wall and yelled in his face “I don’t give a fuck how many people are here — they get everything. I don’t care if it’s one!“ And that’s true man.
Tags: music band interview thegaslightanthem - World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns – New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics.
Tags: climatechange globalwarming ecology environment statistics studies - The Elders of Hizbollah – “The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.” Original story from liberal centre-right Israeli paper Ha’aretz.
Tags: Israel palestine racism occupation oppression colonialism holocoast nazis religion - Punknews.org | Frank Turner: Part 1 – First part of a neat little interview with Frank Turner.
Tags: band music interview - THE SINGULARITY on MySpace Music – I dig these guys, they play great gruff melodic punk rock. Awesome name too!
Tags: band music - Charlie Brooker says jokes are funny but picking them apart isn’t – There are countless types of joke, but only two ways of constructing them. They’re either improvised – downloaded from nowhere in the blink of an eye – or “solved” like puzzles. That’s why most topical gag writers also enjoy crosswords and Sudoku. Their job consists of unravelling brainteasers. It’s like appearing on Ready, Steady, Cook: you’re presented with a limited range of surprise ingredients and expected to whisk something up against an ever-ticking clock. And said ingredients are often dry and unappetising to begin with.
Tags: comedy humour analysis writing - UK Music Industry Economists Admit: Music Industry Getting Bigger, Not Smaller – “…despite all of the whining and complaining about the state of the music industry, some of the music industry’s own economists are admitting that the market is growing.” There are some provisos and possible arguments to note, but this is very interesting.
Tags: music musicindustry economics business - In China And India, Stronger Intellectual Property Is Unnecessary – China and India are countries of enormous internal economic differences, primarily stemming from productivity gaps. The technologies that enable world-class economic efficiency in some parts of China and India need to be diffused throughout the country, but the monopoly pricing associated with IPR limits the ability of the poor to access empowering technology.
Tags: intellectualproperty china india developingworld economics innovation - Reformist gains in Kurdish vote shake Iraq’s quiet north – The surprisingly strong showing by a reformist party in Kurdistan elections is shaking the power structure in what has long been the most stable part of Iraq.
Tags: iraq middleeast politics electoralpolitics